Rafael Viñoly, the architect who worked on the most recent failed redesign for Battersea power station in London, has been hired as the creative brain behind developer Mike Hussey’s proposal to build a stadium for Chelsea football club at the site.
Viñoly worked on the £5.5bn revamp of the Grade II*-listed London landmark that won planning permission last year, but the plan collapsed a week ago when the power station was put into administration after its owner, the Irish property firm Real Estate Opportunities, failed to repay £324m to its lenders. The 16-hectare site in south-west London, valued at £500m in October, will be put up for sale by the administrators, Ernst & Young, with Chelsea’s billionaire owner Roman Abramovich seen as a frontrunner to acquire it.
Viñoly is collaborating with the architects Kohn Pedersen Fox on the plan put forward by Hussey, a former Land Securities executive. Chelsea has not made a decision to leave its Stamford Bridge home but has appointed Hussey’s Almacantar vehicle, along with KPF, to draw up plans for a 55,000-capacity stadium to be situated to the south-east of the power station.
New York-based Viñoly wants to retain as much of the power station as possible, keeping structural changes to a minimum. His new plan is thought to be less ambitious than REO’s 750,000 sq metre development of 3,400 homes, as well as shops and offices. The power station’s distinct four white chimneys were to be demolished and rebuilt, as they were deemed to be “beyond repair”.
But Keith Garner, an architect and member of a local campaign group, said: “Jamming a large football stadium against Battersea power station is a bad idea.” The Battersea Power Station Community Group wants the turbine hall turned into an exhibition centre – a showcase for British design and manufacturing – with offices and flats on the upper floors. Garner held up the successful revamp of the former Dean Clough Mills in Halifax, once the world’s largest carpet factory, as an example. He has tried to get Google UK interested, which is based in nearby Victoria and needs more space.
REO’s lenders, Lloyds Banking Group and Ireland’s National Management Asset Agency, are keen to recoup their money. Nama is thought to prefer Chelsea, while other potential bidders for Battersea include the Malaysian property group SP Setia, UK developers including Berkeley, Development Securities and British Land, along with sovereign wealth funds and private equity firms such as Blackstone.
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